Madhavi Sunder for Davis School Board

Great fundraiser for the Davis Schools Foundation this evening!

Fred Korematsu: All American Hero Our hero is mild-mannered Fred Korematsu, an ordinary welder working in a shipyard who transforms into a champion for more than a hundred thousand people.This story follows Korematsu from his all-American childhood in Oakland, California, to his role as a young man in challenging the Internment, ...

Today California celebrates the Fred T. Korematsu Day of Civil Liberties and the Constitution. In Davis, where we have the very first school in the nation named after the civil rights hero, hundreds of students at Korematsu Elementary sang songs celebrating a great civil rights hero whose lessons on the importance of civil liberties are more salient now than ever. Hearing first graders singing about how Fred Korematsu taught them to "speak up" when they see injustice is incredibly inspiring.

This is what I like to call "Passion Based Learning" -- Congrats to DJUSD 5th Grader Michael Rios for already being a published author, of Minecraft fan fiction stories! And thanks to our teachers at Chavez Elementary, including my friend Kathy Roggenbuck, for helping Michael achieve his dreams.

Davis fifth-grader publishes Minecraft fan fiction Michael Rios started playing Minecraft a couple of years ago when he was about 8. The computer and video game — very popular with the 8-12 age group — allows players to create and explore new world...

I had a lot of fun helping to open and then attending the Davis Senior High School/Da Vinci Speech and Debate club's 3rd Annual Showcase at Brunelle Theater last night. In just three years the club has grown in stature, with students now placing in state and national invitational tournaments. It was particularly fun to watch the students debate whether DJUSD should adopt later start times for secondary schools. Proud that our School Board already unanimously voted to start Junior Highs around 8:30 a.m. beginning this fall, and to start the high schools around 8:30 a.m. beginning Fall 2017! Congrats to this talented young team and thanks to teacher and Coach Janine Widman.

Today I and my colleagues on the Davis School Board, along with Laura Juanitas and other school district administrators, were presented with the Calvin E. Handy Leadership Award of the Diversity and Principles of Community for 2016 at UC Davis. We were honored for our work together to initiate a comprehensive study of the safety and emergency preparedness of our district school sites. Our Board is proud to partner with community leaders like Retired UC Davis Police Chief Calvin Handy to help make our schools and community safer. Ret. Chief Handy is a man of many talents -- here he is playing sax in a band the performed at the event at UC Davis today!

Tonight the Davis School Board will vote on substantial changes to our GATE/AIM program. I hope we can find some common ground that keeps the focus first and foremost on the educational, social and emotional needs of Davis children. In Davis we have long recognized that to meet the needs of all children, we must provide for each child.

How The U.S. Is Neglecting Its Smartest Kids The authors of a new book argue that efforts to raise achievement for students at the bottom have come at the expense of the most gifted and talented.

Full STEAM ahead for fall 2015 By Madhavi Sunder The kids, teachers and staff are back in session in the Davis Joint Unified School District excited for a year of learning and growth. I feel optimistic that the coming year will ...

Wonderful performance last night by DJUSD's Mariachi Band -- the only Jr. High and Senior High School Mariachi Band in the greater Sacramento region. They met their fundraising goal last night and will be going to the National Competition in LA this weekend! Congrats to you all!

The Davis School Board voted 5-0 last night to give the Later Start Committee the summer and fall to more fully explore alternative bell schedules that would mitigate the biggest negative effects of a later school start time for secondary schools, while also addressing important issues, such as student stress. I'm hopeful that our community will be able to work together creatively to find the best schedule that will promote the academic, social and emotional needs of all our Davis kids.

Late starts? Board will sleep on it The Davis school board deferred to the calendar on Thursday night, deciding (in effect) that changing the start time at junior high and high school campuses for the coming school year, and changing...

The Huffington Post reports that school districts around the country, from Virginia to Massachusetts, Ohio, and Hawaii have made the move to start their secondary school later in the morning (around 8:30 a.m.) in light of "compelling scientific evidence" supporting the shift to improve teens' physical and mental wellbeing. Here in Davis, I've spent time talking to teachers, parents, and staff -- from the faculty lounges of Harper Jr. High and Holmes Jr. High to coffee houses and people's homes -- and have heard from many community members about this. The district's sleep committee is working hard canvassing stakeholders, studying the research, and looking at other schools' bell schedules. The issue comes back to the Davis School Board in early April.

Why More Schools Are Letting Their Students Sleep In It can be downright Sisyphean to get a teenager out of bed. Just like adults, they're often significantly sleep-deprived -- and the first period bell is doing them no favors. Adolescents have been steadily logging fewer hours of sleep over the las...

Capital Public Radio's "Insight" interviews Harvard Sleep researcher Dr. Laura Barger about the Davis School Board's recent decision to consider later start times for our secondary schools consistent with science regarding the health and mental health needs of teens for more sleep.

Insight: News Network / Teen Sleep / Lodi Science Night / Meri St. Mary : Capital Public Radio,... News Network - Nick Miller, co-editor of Sacramento News & Review, will talk about the latest news in Sacramento including: water meters, a shooting outside of...